Forced to put their existence up to a vote, over 70 of 408 public unions in Wisconsin have been rejected.
Freedom in the socialist paradise: Cuba is lifting the limit on the number of people allowed to buy a car.
The government has a monopoly on the sale of imported new and used vehicles, and has required any potential buyer to obtain a special card from the Transport Ministry authorizing the purchase of a car. The cards took months or years to obtain, creating a black market in cards in which holders would often sell them for more than the price of the car itself.
Don’t count your blessings, however. The change is only in place “of new regulations, which would be made public in coming days.”
The real legal issues surrounding the right to openly carry your pistol.
Cooke carefully tears apart the typical but nonsensical arguments of the left against open carry, but then discusses intelligently the problems. As he notes, “The open-carry question is a more complex one than some of its advocates like to admit.”
If only the conversation focused on these issues instead of the absurd fear-mongering of the left.
The end of free speech: The star of cable television’s highest rated show in history has been sacked because he dared criticize the homosexual lifestyle.
It does not matter whether one disagrees with him or not. He has the right to express these opinions, and should not be punished merely because they are not politically correct in today’s society.
The certainty of the global warming crowd: Reddit bans everyone from expressing skepticism of global warming.
In a move that has been described by one British academic as “positive censorship”, a Reddit moderator has announced that Reddit is becoming “increasingly stringent with deniers”. The Reddit moderator says climate “contrarians” were too often expressing “uninformed and outspoken opinions”, and so the site decided to adopt a much more “proactive moderation”. Now, whenever a user makes a “potentially controversial submission” on climate change, the moderators issue that user with a “warning”. If the user persists in posting “potentially controversial submissions”, he’s “banned from the forum”.
The worst part of this is the reaction of Reddit’s moderators:
Reddit’s moderators are really happy with the results of their war against the expressers of “outspoken opinions” on climate change. They found that by “negating the ability of this misguided group to post to the forum” (a long-winded way of saying “banning them”), there has been a “change in the culture within the comments”. “Where once there were personal insults and bitter accusations, there is now discussion of the relevant aspects of [scientific] research”, we are told. In short, having expelled outspoken, controversial “deniers” from its forums, Reddit now finds that its discussions of climate change are more measured – that is, on-message, conformist, uncontroversial.
How convenient. You don’t like the opinions of those who disagree with you, so you ban them. Sure solves the problem of winning debates, doesn’t it?
I wouldn’t object if the moderators just banned insulting and offensive comments. I do that here at Behind the Black. What they’ve apparently done instead is to ban all opposing opinions, which is far different.
2013: a bad year for liberty.
More than half the U.S. is covered with snow this November, the most in ten years.
The certainty of climate scientists:
Kevin Trenberth, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, agreed the surprising amount of snowfall is a separate issue from climate change. “If you warm up the atmosphere, you can actually get heavier snowfalls in winter,” Trenberth said. “That’s one of the ironic things about global warming. Maybe we can say that without climate change, it would be colder still. [emphasis mine]
In other words, according to Trenberth the increased snow cover and cold temperatures are evidence of global warming.
Thirteen insane projects funded by our federal government.
I especially like #5: “NASA spends $3 million looking for signs of intelligent life…in Congress.”
These idiotic programs, which certainly only scratch the surface of the wasteful and corrupt spending in Washington, prove once again that the most recent budget deal is a fraud, that there is no reason to support any increase in federal spending, that we probably could cut the budget in half and not notice anything.
Sadly, that budget deal appears about to pass the Senate.
“If they kill us all, will you do something then?”
Guess who said it, and guess whom he was making his plea to.
Leftwing news photographer reveals he is no news photographer, ashamed he broke a big story revealing the ugly side of his hero Obama.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so pitiful. Your job is to cover the news, to tell the public the real reality behind the propaganda politicians pump out, no matter what political party those politicians belong to. Instead, this guy wants everyone to look the other way in order to protect his political heroes on the left.
In other words, he ain’t a reporter, he’s a leftwing Democratic Party propagandist, disguised as reporter. Sadly, that description applies to almost all reporters today.
The law is such an inconvenient thing: As deadlines loom and the problems with the Obamacare website continue, the Obama administration has issued a number of illegal extensions to the law.
I hate the law, as any reader of this website knows. However, the law is the law. Obama and his bureaucratic minions don’t have the legal right to rewrite it at their pleasure, just because it doesn’t work. And they are discovering this, as increasingly insurance companies and state insurance boards are telling them that their so-called changes are invalid and cannot be obeyed.
It appears a growing number of Congressmen also agree: A resolution in the House demands Obama be brought to court for not faithfully executing the law.
Maybe not so stupid: It appears that Senate Republicans will filibuster the Ryan budget deal.
If the Republicans in the Senate can force some changes, to both the reduction in the sequester cuts over the next two years as well as the procedural change that ends the minority’s ability to block tax increases, then they will have accomplished something.
What I like about this is that they appear to be willing to fight, something Republicans all too often fail to do.
Right on! It is time to start applying the Broken Windows Theory to liberal intolerance.
Compare the rude, vicious terms from Obama and his spokespeople, and Senior Democrats such as Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi and others, with the gentlemanly behavior of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. There is plenty of push back and name-calling on both sides at lower levels and on the blogosphere, but it’s qualitatively different when it comes from The White House and the Democratic Party House and Senate leadership. When the leadership of the Republican Party does not push back against the leadership of the Democratic Party for the name-calling and taunts, it’s an invitation to more attacks, and it sets a national tone.
We’ve become punching bags. At dinner and at the highest political levels.
We need to do what Rudy Giuliani did to graffiti artists and squeegee guys, apply broken windows theory. “Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.”
In other words, push back hard every time a liberal spits out an insult or rude comment about conservatives. Don’t back down. Don’t let them get away with it easily.
Well, I agree, but be forewarned. Liberals are all self-righteous about you being polite, but never think such rules should apply to them. (Which isn’t surprising considering how much they like to tell others what do to.) You will lose friends, as I have. I don’t think any of those lost friendships was ever much of a loss, but you should be forewarned.
Pushback: A man arrested in Colorado City for legally open carrying his pistol has won $23K in a lawsuit against the city.
We need more people suing for these kinds of illegal actions by the police.
Homeland Security has finally fired their black racist who had called for the mass murder of whites.
It only took four months.
What is wrong with this? A Michigan teachers union is trying to win a $10,000 severance payment for a child molester.
This is the same case in which several teachers had written letters of support for the molester.
How to beat a photo-enforced traffic ticket.
This detailed look at the budget deal suggests it isn’t as much of a surrender as first implied.
I have to admit this analysis leaves me more hopeful, especially with this point:
That the Democrats would accept a deal like this is a pretty striking indication of how the Republican House has changed the conversation on the spending front since 2010. Think of it this way: In their first budget after re-taking the majority—the FY 2012 Ryan budget, passed in 2011—the House Republicans wanted discretionary spending to be $1.039 trillion in 2014 and $1.047 trillion in 2015. These budgets were of course described by the Democrats and the political press (but I repeat myself) as some reversion to humanity’s barbaric past. Yet this proposed deal with the Democrats would put discretionary spending at $1.012 trillion in 2014 and $1.014 trillion in 2015—in both cases below that first House Republican budget.
Check out the graph at the link. It does illustrate bluntly that the Republicans are beginning to force the budget curve downward, if slowly. It also suggests that should they win big majorities in both Houses of Congress next November they will be posed to finally push for some real reductions in the size of the federal government, as they will have the votes in Congress and will be doing it with the strong endorsement of the voters.
Fail! After two months, Obamacare has only enrolled less than 400,000 people, even as it has caused millions to lose their health insurance policies.
To get even these numbers the Obama administration is defining “enroll” as someone who went through the process of picking a plan, but hasn’t yet signed on and actually enrolled in it.
Though these low numbers are partly because of the inability of the Obamacare webpage to function, the real reason is sticker shock. Obamacare has raised the cost of health insurance so much that people simply can’t afford it.
Update: It appears that only 5 to 20% of these so-called enrollees have actually purchased Obamacare insurance.
Triumph of the Vulgarians: Decency is now the new taboo.
A private unmanned mission to Mars by 2018?
Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, Mars One founder and CEO, told reporters the foundation has signed contracts with two major aerospace firms, Lockheed Martin and Surrey Satellite Technology, to develop mission concept studies, a first step toward eventual construction and launch.
The lander will be based on the design of the 2007 Phoenix Mars lander that Lockheed Martin developed for NASA. The communications satellite — the first such “geostationary” comsat in orbit around the red planet — will incorporate technologies developed by Surrey and used in a variety of operational spacecraft.
Mission concept studies are of course essential before you begin construction, but they are also a far cry from actual construction. I’ve seen literally hundreds of similar concept studies about someone’s big space plans with no subsequent follow up. Thus, I will only begin to take Mars One serious when they actually start cutting metal.
Why Republicans should reject the surrender budget deal rumors say Paul Ryan is negotiating with Democrats.
Expect more articles like this. There are a lot of conservatives in the Republican House caucus who are no longer willing to lick the feet of Democrats, even if the Republican leadership is. And any deal that gives up sequestration is going to face their wrath.
Also, these kinds of articles serve to pressure Ryan so that he does not agree to a surrender.
Oh those evil capitalists: An airline stages a magnificent “Christmas miracle” for hundreds of its customers.
Watch the video. You will be glad.
Yesterday police in Wisconsin celebrated Pearl Harbor Day by issuing tickets to people waving the American flag.
Video below the fold. Stick around to the end. As the man says, “The cops can’t scare us off, can they?”
» Read more
Does this make you feel safer? Of the 78 times police in Greensboro, North Carolina, fired their pistols in 2012, all but two were to kill someone’s pet.
Don’t you feel safer? A TSA agent confiscates the two-inch fake pistol of a monkey sock puppet.
Another news report suggests that Republicans are preparing to surrender in budget talks.
Senior aides familiar with the talks say the emerging agreement aims to partially repeal the sequester and raise agency spending to roughly $1.015 trillion in fiscal 2014 and 2015. That would bring agency budgets up to the target already in place for fiscal 2016. To cover the cost, Ryan and Murray are haggling over roughly $65 billion in alternative policies, including cuts to federal worker pensions and higher security fees for the nation’s airline passengers.
Republican leaders are also seeking additional savings to knock a small dent in deficits projected to exceed $6 trillion over the next decade. But the deal would do nothing to trim the debt, which is now larger, as a percentage of the economy, than at any point in U.S. history except during World War II. [emphasis mine]
To me, the biggest disappointment of this surrender is that Paul Ryan is negotiating it, proof that he too is no fiscal conservative and worse is far more stupid than I had thought.
Obamacare, where the liberal dream crashes and burns.
The botched website was an unforced catastrophe. But that’s not the real problem with Obamacare. The real problem, as dozens of thoughtful commentators have concluded, is the law itself. Obamacare is a massive policy experiment that seeks to remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy – a body that’s so fantastically complex, with so many players and so many moving parts, that nobody can possibly understand how they all interact. Tweak one part, and other parts will behave in unpredictable ways. Pull on a thread and half the sweater may unravel. Even Max Baucus, the Democratic Senate finance chairman, has warned that implementing a law so complicated could be a “train wreck.”
Generally, the way leftists and liberals have succeeded in gaining power is to work incrementally, in very small steps. This way, the link between their actions and the problems those actions have caused is easily hidden. They can then point to these new problems and demand another small incremental increase in their control and power in order to solve those problems, which in turn causes new problems that they can then use to justify another incremental step. And so forth.
Obamacare, however, broke this pattern. Rather than being incremental, it tried to do it all in one big massive attack. The result is that the policy is very clearly the cause of the disaster, the left can’t hide it, and their entire agenda for the past century now stands exposed as the fraud it is. The only way I can see them surviving this disaster is to try to seize power illegally, another typical leftwing technique that they use often when reality starts to go against them.
Tbe competition heats up: International Launch Services ((ILS) has successfully launched its Russian Proton rocket to put another commercial communications satellite into orbit.
This launch solidifies the recovery of the Proton rocket since the disastrous July launch. With the Russian government forcing a consolidation of all Russian aerospace companies into one government owned cooperation, however, it is unclear what will happen to ILS and Khrunichev (the Russian company that makes the Proton).
The stupid party strikes again! Rumors suggest that Republicans are moving to accept a budget deal that would end sequestration.
At issue are efforts to craft a compromise that would ease across-the-board spending cuts due to take effect in January, known as the sequester, and replace them with a mix of increased fees and cuts in mandatory spending programs.
As de Rugy notes:
The sequester, no matter how imperfect a policy, is arguably the only victory for fiscal conservatives in a very long time. Their victory is also president Obama’s biggest defeat (outside of the self-inflicted disastrous Obamacare rollout). It is also another opportunity to remind the American people that the alarmist predictions that we were all subjected to about the devastating impact sequestration would have on our economy didn’t materialize.
She adds:
So let’s sum this up: a massive and unnecessary surrender on the sequester, some tax hikes, and more unemployment benefits. It seems to me that the Republicans are learning their moves from the French army.
Not only do most Democrats have to be replaced, so do a significant number of Republicans. Too many of these politicians have no interest in serving the citizenry being crushed by this out-of-control federal government. Instead they serve that government instead.
